A person holds a smartphone showing Go-Viet ride-hailing app. Go-Viet users on November 21, 2019 discovered the street names Truong Sa and Hoang Sa they typed into the app were being converted into star symbols - PHOTO: THANH HOA

HCMC – Update errors on ride-hailing app Go-Viet were blamed for the disappearance of HCMC’s Hoang Sa and Truong Sa streets from the app’s built-in map. The issue was not related to Vietnam’s sovereignty over its islands and waters in the East Sea, confirmed a Go-Viet representative.

Concerns had been raised as the two streets named after Vietnam’s two archipelagos Truong Sa (Spratly) and Hoang Sa (Paracel) are not shown in the app.

The representative made the statement in response to complaints from Go-Viet users on November 21, when they discovered the street names they typed into the app were being converted into star symbols.

The representative on November 22 was cited by Tuoi Tre newspaper as saying that some errors had occurred while updating the app on November 20 and 21, including display errors related to the names of islands, rivers and mountains appearing on the app’s map.

The firm’s technical team fixed the display errors by November 22. At present, 20% of Android users have had their apps updated. Meanwhile, the updated version will be available for iOS users within the next three days, after Apple approves the corrected version on the App Store.

Other errors related to chatting features on the app were also fixed on November 21, said the representative.

Go-Viet, a unit of Indonesia-based ride-hailing service operator Go-Jek, uses Google Maps and Google Cloud for navigation and data storage on its app.